Lifeboat Foundation

By using sensor-embedded sponges and data, Vienna researchers quickly trained robots to clean washbasins.

Thanks to researchers at TU Wein in Vienna, the promise of housecleaning robots is one step closer. The team has developed a self-learning robot to mimic humans to complete simple tasks like cleaning washbasins.

While this might sound mundane, the development is very significant as hard coding a robot to move a sponge over the complex curved edges of a washbasin would be a monumental task. To this end, the research team found a hack by blending observation with tactile data from human teachers to train robots to copy the same task.